Mobile devices having curved, non-planar displays can provide advantages in ergonomics compared to the typical planar displays that are widely used. Display manufacturers have attempted to build non-planar displays using both LCD and OLED technologies. Some have attempted fabricate such displays with glass substrates and others with plastic substrate materials. Manufacturing challenges have prevented mass production to date.
Early efforts to form curved LCDs faced difficulties with MURA artifacts and luminance nonuniformity. The MURA artifacts arose from bending forces affecting cell gap uniformity in the liquid crystal cell. The luminance non-uniformity resulted from the difficulty in creating curved backlights with suitably uniform backlight distribution.
OLEDs are not subject to cell gap or backlight concerns, but their stringent requirements for moisture and oxygen barriers present similarly formidable difficulties. Glass frit seals used with glass substrates are a viable barrier solution, but unsuited to curved display applications. Thus, the future for a curved OLED display will likely require specially manufactured plastic substrates. This approach will result in a higher cost of manufacturing and challenges in flexible moisture and oxygen barrier encapsulation.
Electrophoretic display media is well-adapted to curved devices. This technology is a good fit for e-readers, but its slow switching speed and poor colors make it a weak choice for the competitive mobile device display arena.
It would be advantageous to provide a non-planar or curved display and associated methods of production that address some of the drawbacks of the currently available technology.